I’m screaming of a white Santa,
The kind they have in all the stores
Where the rich white shoppers have hired coppers
To keep the culluhd folks outdoors.
I’m screaming on a white station,
The one you know is always right.
Though the thinking’s not very bright,
Just like Jesus, Santa Claus is white.

I wonder how I could bank that “honorary white” status as an Arab born in Beirut (geographically in between the birthplaces of the white Santa and white Jesus)? Should I download the vid on my phone & show it to the NSA next time I’m selected “randomly” for inspection at the airport?

“She is a quick study, a true skeptic and a recovering perfectionist”.
I have nothing to say that can adequately capture how infuriatingly nonsensical and wrong that statement is. How in the FUCK is Megyn Kelly a “true skeptic”? How do you get to spew bullshit line after bullshit line and still be hailed as a respectable, level-headed voice of reason?
Is there any hope that someday, there will be a general public that has a higher standard for reasoned debate than Megyn Kelly?

Not trying to refute Jon Stewart’s point, but how exactly do you determine a person’s skin complexion from their skull — let alone from the skull of another person who just happened to live in the same general area at about the same time (give or take a century)?

I mean, I don’t have the same skin complexion as my *brother*. Hell, I don’t have the same complexion all year round.

Using religious icons to determine how a person looked is similarly naive.

“Using religious icons to determine how a person looked is similarly naive.”

If the icon was created around the time the person was alive, not really. Or is every religious person who ever lived anywhere automatically suspected of dishonesty about even fairly trivial facts? If you ask a religious person for directions, do you go the other way out of spite?

Do you actually believe St. Nicholas sat for his portrait? Or that a sketch was passed around to every hagiographer (religious painter)?

This is not about dishonesty, it’s about (fairly well known) artistic conventions. Religious icons were not painted to actual likeness. They did not depict people but events, historical or symbolic, as well as theological concepts.

Most Greek Orthodox icons follow the same stereotypes. For instance, faces are almost always serious, no smiles. Perspective is consciously avoided. Heaven is shown above the clouds and Hades is often visible inside the earth, in the manner of a theatrical scene, where an implied wall is missing. And so on.

My point is simply that people unfamiliar with certain artistic styles can read in them information that is simply not there. For example, this is ancient greek black-figure pottery, showing Dionysus and 2 maenads (his female followers). You can see that he’s black, while the women are white. Why? Because men are painted black in this style of pottery, and women white — and not just mythical figures or gods.

Re 17 & 18, wasn’t it said that if Yeshua bar YHWH showed up at an airline check-in he’d get profiled as a terrorist? What the fuck do these dipshits think a 1st century Palestinian Jew would have looked like?

Anyone see Kelly on Friday. She rehashes the Santa/Jesus thing and comes off rather better than as depicted by Stewart. I love john but think he and others may have misread this one. They missed the humor. Also she admitted the mistake about Jesus being white. First time I’ve watched her. Find it online and see what you think.

Re#20 . Here is the link to Kelly’s opening remarkshttp://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/13/megyn-kelly-responds-to-critics-over-santa-is-white-flap/
Before you jump all over me look at it. I admit I didn’t see her first show on this,only what Stewart did and I was prepared to hate her and think she is stupid but she clearly is not. She was a corporate lawyer for 9 yrs and was good at it. Easy to see the reactions by others and Dailey show tale on it and see it as other than it was- I guess- as I said I haven’t seen the 1st show, but so far I think maybe everyone has been too hard on her. What do u think?

How could say Stewart was too hard on her if you haven’t seen the video from her first show? Stewart didn’t take anything out of context or selectively edit to make her look bad. What she said was ignorant and deserved to be mocked. Not to mention her remarks about Santa and Jesus were said dead straight. If she meant to be funny she failed because she didn’t say it funny.

@Seeker – Intelligence is overvalued, perhaps especially by the intelligent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect)! It’s a good thing, but there are plenty of intelligent evil-doers out there. Having a moral sense, and being willing to act on it, are far more precious commodities. Anyone intelligent person working on Fox News won’t qualify.

I don’t know if “hate” is ever a productive stance, but to the extent that it is Murdoch and his troupe merit it as much as anyone. They’re all venal liars and careerists – fascism with a friendly face, don’t you know?

seeker: Even if Kelly was trying to be funny in the original bit, she failed horribly–she came off as offended and a bit defensive. And if her takeaway point from the whole controversy is that people are sensitive about race and therefore SHE is the victim, then she’s still missing the point. I watched both clips in full (and the Daily Show segment), and it seems to me that she’s either incredibly ignorant about privilege, or intentionally stoking the flames for ratings. Either way, I don’t have much sympathy for her.

Finally saw the first segment ad I do agree with you all that in the seconds she mischaracterized the first, it was said straight, there was no humor and she deserved what she got. Thanks to you for helping me see this. I wonder if she thinks she is racist.